Red Fleece | Page 9

brotherhood is faring? God, how he took to that dream! He will be a Voice--"
They were standing. Fallows suddenly reached for his cap. "I'll go out with you--just to get out. The room is too small for me to-night."
Yet, when they reached the street, he left them abruptly, as if he had already said too much.
"He seems to be burning up," said Peter.
Berthe did not answer.
"He was like Zarathustra coming down from the mountain--so shockingly full of power," Peter added. "And yet he said so little of his own part."
"He couldn't, Peter. He's like you--when moments are biggest.... Oh, Peter, where do you keep your passion?"
"You mean this great burning that Fallows knows?"
"Yes."
"I haven't it. I haven't that passion. I think I am just a reporter. But you have it.... My father loved his family. I think your father must have loved the world--"
"But you love the world--"
"No, I love you."
"Peter, Peter--come to-morrow! Don't come in with me to-night!"
Peter went to his rooms at once. He was struck hard, but merely showed a bit weary. He found himself objecting to characteristics of Fallows' mind, the same which he had admired and delighted in from Berthe. She had always talked easily of death, and he had been without criticism; now he disliked the casual mention of death in Fallows' talk.
Peter saw that he was sore, and hated himself for it. Fallows personally was ready for death; therefore he had the right to counsel martyrdoms for others if he wished. Death to Peter, however, was not strictly a conversational subject. If a man were ready to die for another, it was not good taste to say so. Still he forced himself to be just, by thinking of Fallows' life.
Fallows somehow had turned a corner that he, Peter Mowbray, had not come to so far. Self-hypnotized, or not, the exile had given up everything in life to make the world better as he saw it. He had written and traveled and talked and plotted, even vowed himself to poverty, all for the good of the under-dog.
"It isn't fanaticism, when you come to look at it," Peter mused. "He sees it clearly, and makes one see it for the moment of listening. He isn't afraid. He would die every day for it, if he could.... And I take things as I find them, and grin. I wouldn't even have thought otherwise, except for Berthe. I have a suspicion that I'm half-baked."
Peter's mind was engaging itself thus feverishly, to avoid the main issue that the woman had flung him from her, and run to cover, stuffing her ears, so to speak, and asking him not to follow. He braced himself now and faced it. "If it happened to another pair, I should say it was the finish," he thought. "I should say that no man and woman could pass a rock like that.... I can't get to her point of view by thinking myself there. I'm cold--that's the word. And she's superb. I'd rather be her friend than lord of any other woman. That won't change. And she has spoiled everything I thought I knew. Altogether--it's a game, bright little story--and deep."
Lonegan came in and flung himself down wearily.
"I've been busy. Boylan is leaving in thirty-six hours. You're going with him?"
"I'm ready," said Peter.
"Did you have a big time?"
"Yes."
"What do you think of Fallows now?"
"I'm strong for him."
"Peter--you look bushed."
"It drains a man to spend an evening in that company. A fellow has to have a heavy lid--not to waste fire."
Lonegan was worried. "You don't mean to say you're getting fevers and emotions."
"I'm threatened."
"Mowbray--you're lying. I don't believe you'd let anybody see your fires--not even how well you bank 'em. It isn't in you."
"I wish it were," said Peter.
* * *
For a long time after Lonegan left he plunged into his work, but there was no sleep for him afterward. He lay very still, breathing easily, as the fag-end of the night crawled by. At dawn he arose, dressed noiselessly, and went out into the city.
Chapter 7
It was too early to go to Berthe, yet his steps led him to the street of her house, and he had not passed it a second time before she opened the blinds above, and called to him. He looked at her sorrowfully, and she met his eyes.
"Come in, Peter. I've been so sorry! If you can forgive me, we'll have coffee together--"
He followed her upstairs. The premonition came that he was to take away the image of Berthe Solwicz at its highest--inimitably enticing to his heart, the girlish and utterly feminine spirit that had captivated the man in his breast. She did not seem to know that she was like the woman of the first meeting, but to him all her grace of that day had returned, as